1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for providing a print of an image and an apparatus thereof, and, in particular, to a method for providing a print of an image from a remote place and an apparatus thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
With increasing popularity of digital cameras, a digital print of a photographed image has become popular. In a form of the image printing business, there are those that can be realized only because the image information is the digital image data.
For example, the following image printing business has been carried on: a digital print provider, a provider of the Internet, or the like makes users register digital images together with a password set arbitrarily by the user, keeps them in a server computer as well as opens to viewers who access to the server computer by inputting the password via a communication means such as the Internet, and receives an order for forming a digital print from the viewer.
Regarding the image printing business, there is a merit that the viewer can select desired images from the registered images, and order for digital prints. It is convenient for these cases that a plurality of prints for a group photo are to be distributed to each attendant, and that somebody wants a latest photo to be sent to an acquaintance living in a remote place.
By the way, it is often happen that the cost for distributing the print of a group photo of a plurality of people is paid as an item of the party expenditure. Regarding specially invited attendant such as, for example, attendants to a wedding party, a teacher of an alumni meeting, it is common that the host of a party pays the cost of the print. When a latest photo is sent to an acquaintance or a relative living in a remote place, it is inappropriate to let them pay the print cost. In the case of conventional silver halide photograph, since a print presenter such as the host of the meeting pays the cost of the print, and delivers the print to the presentee, it has been no problem described above. However, it has been difficult to let the presentee choose desired images.
Regarding the digital data such as music, game soft, and digital AV, not the media on which the digital data is recorded, but the digital contents that is only contents of the data has started to be sold. Specifically, a contents purchaser sets a recording medium prepared by the contents purchaser in a contents selling apparatus arranged in front of a store, selects a contents to be purchased by a predetermined operation, and copies the data of the selected contents on the medium. Alternatively, the contents purchaser accesses to a contents sales site of a contents seller from the contents purchaser's PC via the Internet, downloads the data of the contents to be purchased by carrying out the predetermined operation indicated by the site, and copies onto a recording medium set in the PC. The operation to pay the purchasing cost is included in the predetermined operation. Thus, the contents purchaser can obtain the recording medium on which the digital contents are recorded. In this method however, there are no label or jacket for indicating the contents unlike the case that the contents seller purchases the recording medium on which the data of the contents is recorded. This is inappropriate when the contents purchaser arranges and keeps the recording medium on which the contents is recorded. Although the contents purchaser can make the title and jacket by own handwriting or by the PC, it is often difficult to produce those that suit the contents. Accordingly, the contents purchaser has been hardly satisfied with those handmade label or jacket.